What do you think about this flat?

[helpmedecideplease]

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44509686.html

Skerrywind, how much is your huge 5 bedroom semi worth now?

notanurse- probably increased by 20% in the past 2 years.

It's interesting to watch all the Londoners scrabbling over the same piece of cheese. No surprising property prices are crazy. For those of us observing from the outside it seems mental.

skerry it is mental - prices are out of control and I find it sad. Housing should be affordable for all. We need young couples and young people to be able to buy and live in London. Otherwise it isn't a thriving city, it's just a playground for the super rich.

Every time "affordable housing" advert shows up on my FB feed it is a 1 bed flat that costs at least £500,000 and is followed by dozens of comments about how that is not affordable.

I'm not London but there are certain streets here that are well out of our price range. Houses pretty much identical to the one we have, but the postcode means they are worth hundreds of thousands more.

Location location location holds true wherever you live. It's all a question of scale.

Looks great, what about train noise/main road noise?

The problem is centralisation of population, commerce, employment, media, all in London.
UK is a small country, yet anything further than the " home counties " is ignored, with a very odd view about it being grim "up north", no doubt with dragons.
It pisses off people "up north" and equally economically shags people who can't afford to live an average life in London.

Can we please not turn this into yet another London bashing thread? If London decided to become independent of the UK (and you could argue a decent case for that, given that London remained overwhelmingly to stay in the EU), the UK would be stuffed. 11% of tax takings are spent on London but it generates 30% of UK revenue. We get a brief interlude of people being nice to us after a terrorist attack and then it's back to business as usual.

I missed the bit about it being on the market for 7 months.
That would make me suss.
That area is very popular and its practically on top of a tube station.

See if there is anything for sale further up the top in Tuffnell Park/Holloway.
Lovely ex council brick built flats and they will be a bit cheaper.
Try Dalmeny Avenue and Carleton Road

Not London bashing- but just a correction here- but it generates 30% of UK revenue. - only because of accounting methods and the fact that often head offices are registered in London.
It is misleading to suggest that that all this revenue has actually been generated in London.
And no one is "London bashing"
London is a wonderful city, with a proud heritage, but I actually think this London focussed attitude in the UK is actually becoming detrimental to the city.

We get a brief interlude of people being nice to us after a terrorist attack and then it's back to business as usual.

That road is really noisy at night. have you checked it out on a Saturday night close to pub chucking out time? You might get pee/puke in the doorway.

Definitely check out the obligations to getting work to the building - I looked at an ex LA flat where they wanted £12k/flat in the first year for repairs on top of a service charge.

skerrywind Where do you live? When you said 20 mins from "the capital" are you outside England? Because you can't be in proximity to London! Sorry if you've already answered but I am intrigued...

OP, agree with everyone else - cheap for a 3-bed location-wise, if you'd want double glazing this may not be possible in leasehold depending on how it's structured, check service charges an upcoming major works very carefully (& existing reserve funds) - this applies to any leasehold flat in a large-ish building.

The second flat is not far from Hornsey BR station which has loads of trains going into Finsbury Park/Highbury & Islington/The City, so easy connections into town and onto underground lines.

DH and I had an ex LA flat before our current house. It was a pain having a council as the free holder - when we put double glazing in we had to ensure that the new frames were the exact same style (eg # of panels) as the original metal frame windows, could not install satellite TV as no dishes allowed (even though you walked past other developments that had dishes sprouting from every balcony). I would ask to see records of upkeep/maintenance charges and to know if any "notices of work" have been issued - a few months after we moved in we were informed that the external window frames were going to be painted and we either had to pay £2k for them to do it or do it ourselves (this was before we fitted the double glazing). We were on the first floor so borrowed some ladders and did it ourselves!

Where do you & your sister have to commute to - just wondering what other locations to consider?

Would you be eligible for first time buyers incentives fro the government?

You would be able to attract a lodger for the smaller room - obviously as long as the price was right for area and size of room. Not every lodger has a large budget to spend on diggs and would be happy to pay less for less.

Taking in a lodger would allow you to have a steady income to make improvements on the flat at a time you are just establishing yourselves on the housing market

If OP wants a young professional like herself as a lodger she may struggle to attract one for the smallest room, sharing a bathroom with two others. It's all a question of what kind of set up she would like.

I think there are well paid jobs outside London... I'm on nearly 30k a year after graduating, will be up in the mid 40s as soon as I qualify and I've got a house with 2 double bedrooms for £120k, in good nick, with a big garden, new central heating and double glazing... the salary is lower but the cost of living is a hell of a lot better proportionally.

But, given you do want to live in London, that flat looks really nice - decent sized living area, 2 decent bedrooms and a third okay one. Think I'd be considering schools round there just for resale value and would probably want a proper structural survey, given it's been on the market for ages. Don't know about road noise. Do look st the energy rating/ask owners what their bills have been like as some flats like that seem to eat energy. If the library below shut and wasn't replaced with something else you'd have a very cold space underneath you.

It's an okay flat. Above okay shops. In a bit of an okay area. In all a bit flat.

The price however is not okay. I cannot imagine spending that much on this flat. They didn't even make on of the the beds up properly!

It's your money.

Also in London beware of empty spaces below you. They can easily be taken over by those who seek to exploit others.

(I used to live in NW2 and bought my two bedroom garden flat for £75,000 in 1994).

I am at £540k for a flat above shops.

If you moved it to where I live, it would be about £40k.

Is London really that desirable a place to live?

These threads always go a bit 'What a rip off. I bought a ten bedroom baronial mansion with seventeen outbuildings for half that price'.

Maybe that's why it's been on the market so long. I'd hate to live over a food place, pub or dry cleaners (funeral parlour, brothel, pet shop...)

Adding my voice to the question "Where do you live, Skerrywind"? C'mon. You told the OP that the flat was crap, so you must live in majestic splendor.